Back when payphones existed did you regularly use them?

[sam_gordon]

In junior & senior high, the pay phone in the commons let you call without putting in money, you just couldn't talk. So we'd call, parents would answer and we'd "click" the latch(?). "OK, we'll come pick you up."

I also remembering using the pay phone in the lobby of my dorm in college to do weekly check ins with my parents (room phones didn't have long distance).

 

[CGB]

We did use payphones a lot when I was in the Military - cellphones were still a far of fantasy - even when I got one of the first phones it was 72 cents a minute to use it so you really did not use it.

Yep. I called home on payphones when I joined the military almost every weekend to let my folks know I was okay. Later, when DH was deployed overseas before email, texting, etc., he would call on a pay phone. One of the most hilarious was when he called and yelled excitedly, "HEY, LISTEN!"... and I could barely hear him. Apparently a tank was driving by and he held the phone out so I could hear it.

 

[tvguy]

Breaking news. Pay phones still exist. Just depends on where you spend time. Every freeway rest stop here has at least one pay phone. Airports still have payphones. Bus depots. Stadiums. The shopping mall.
In the 1970's and 1980's we always carried a roll of dimes for pay phones. We had pagers, and many folks had company two way radios mounted in their personal cars. But we did not want the other TV stations to know what we were doing, so a lot of communications on the two way radio were "find a pay phone and call the office". When I worked in news radio we carried equipment that allowed us to send in audio from our cassette decks over a pay phone.

 

[kdonnel]

Breaking news. Pay phones still exist.

Not nearly as many as in the peak of 1999.

If there were <100,000 in 2016, I would be willing to bet there are 25,000 or fewer now.

I know it had been years since I had seen a working one.

 

[soccerdad72]

Breaking news. Pay phones still exist. Just depends on where you spend time. Every freeway rest stop here has at least one pay phone. Airports still have payphones. Bus depots. Stadiums. The shopping mall.

I would bet that less than half of the payphones you encounter at most of the places you listed are operational.

 

[citruscurtis]

We did use payphones a lot when I was in the Military - cellphones were still a far of fantasy - even when I got one of the first phones it was 72 cents a minute to use it so you really did not use it.


Yup

Basic training 1981 Fort Jackson..pay phone was off limits...2 fellows went to the brig

Advanced training/skill set pay phone could only be used 5-9... basically parents and spouses calling home...noisy and crowded... never called once from South Carolina to Oregon

 

[citruscurtis]

Yep. I called home on payphones when I joined the military almost every weekend to let my folks know I was okay. Later, when DH was deployed overseas before email, texting, etc., he would call on a pay phone. One of the most hilarious was when he called and yelled excitedly, "HEY, LISTEN!"... and I could barely hear him. Apparently a tank was driving by and he held the phone out so I could hear it.

What service were you in and were you restricted during training..
Because now I am thinking that maybe the recruit that went to the brig did it during the wrong time....160 folks for 2 phones... plus staff

 

[E&Cmom]

Yes to call my parents to tell them I was late or to get picked up. I also had a friend who was notoriously late or would sleep in so I would have to call to see if she was coming.

 

[barkley]

Yes - to call home with a calling card

I used to buy a calling card to take on vacations b/c hotels always had a fairly small radius of what they considered a 'local call' which was free on the room phone vs. paying some exhoribitant fee on top of inflated 'long distance' fees. I would just go to the lobby payphone and call using the calling card. the minutes on those cards worked for years! when cell phones came about but we still weren't willing to jump on we transitioned to vacationing with burner phones that we would buy a small gift card of minutes for.

A driver would go to the small towns along interstate to pick up the old data tickets with holes punched/ processed in them to indicate origination phone # and number Called with time stamps.
We fed them into the old computers that transcribed them onto those giant tape/ machines all night long and printed the monthly billing statements.

one of my jobs in college was working a keypunch machine. I was responsible for creating the individual cards, one for each item of invantory in a furniture store. I remember sitting in a room typing in card after card and then dumping the small container with all the little dots of paper the machine had punched out (dare not spill it b/c they were so light weight the vacuum resisted picking them up).

 

[bcla]

Phone usage was expensive... didn't even call my girlfriend in 1975... I only used the phone to contact parents to pick me up from university and that was collect calls

Really? I remember back when I was a kid, the monopoly phone company (part of the Bell System) in my region only charged 10 cents for a local call. Long distance from a pay phone could be prohibitively expensive though. But I don’t remember a time limit for a 10 cent local call.

I’m looking it up, and Pacific Telesis (parent of Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell) raised pay phone rates from 10 to 20 cents in 1984. Then to 35 cents in 1997. I think there were also deregulated private pay phone operators by then that could set their own rates. A lot of businesses that hosted them got a bigger cut of revenue.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-18-fi-49879-story.html

There’s an expression that you’ll often hear when someone is talking on the phone in older movies and TV - “It’s your dime”. This could be used when someone didn’t know the caller but was thinking that if they wanted to talk, they weren’t paying for the call.

The one thing I remember were phones (mostly at airports) that didn’t have coin slots. They could be used for toll free or operator assisted calls.

 

[tvguy]

I would bet that less than half of the payphones you encounter at most of the places you listed are operational.

I didn't check, so no idea. Not sure they would still be there if they were out of service.

 

[team bradfield]

Used them daily back when I was a construction foreman, no cell phones back then, we had pagers, I had to use payphone for our 800 # to check in

 

[soccerdad72]

I didn't check, so no idea. Not sure they would still be there if they were out of service.

You'd be surprised. It's been a while, but the last time I saw a payphone out in public, out of curiosity, I picked up the handset - no dial tone. Another one at a different location didn't even have a handset. I don't think they're maintained at all and it's a low priority to the company to remove them as well.

 

[citruscurtis]

Long distance.... that is the rub...in rural Oregon... everything was long distance..
I forgot about the long distance I want to think 10 miles

 

[AnnaS]

Used a pay phone plenty of times.

 

[tvguy]

You'd be surprised. It's been a while, but the last time I saw a payphone out in public, out of curiosity, I picked up the handset - no dial tone. Another one at a different location didn't even have a handset. I don't think they're maintained at all and it's a low priority to the company to remove them as well.

As I recall, you didn't get a dial tone until you put money in.

 

[tvguy]

Not nearly as many as in the peak of 1999.

If there were <100,000 in 2016, I would be willing to bet there are 25,000 or fewer now.

I know it had been years since I had seen a working one.

View attachment 965598

California Department of Transportation website lists pay phones as one of the things all California Rest Areas have, so I assume THOSE are functioning.
https://dot.ca.gov/programs/design/...vability/lap-liv-h-safety-roadside-rest-areas

 

[kdonnel]

California Department of Transportation website lists pay phones as one of the things all California Rest Areas have, so I assume THOSE are functioning.
https://dot.ca.gov/programs/design/...vability/lap-liv-h-safety-roadside-rest-areas

That reminds me of roads that used to have periodic call boxes.

I can't remember the last time I saw a highway with call boxes. I wonder if those still exist anywhere? I-185 here in Georgia had them, but I have not been on that interstate in years.